Thursday, 7 November 2013

Help us Defend and Celebrate Teaching Assistants

Here at #teacherROAR we're huge fans of the teaching assistants we work with - who are often the unsung heroes of education. So we were disgusted to find out that Gove had been secretly plotting to axe 230,000* of them.

That's why we're proud to support Unison's day of action 'Speaking Up for Teaching Assistants' on 29 November. There's lots you can do to show your support for teaching assistants including writing to your MP to let them know how strongly you feel about this. It's easy to do using the Write to Them website here.

What we'd like to do is to have a '12 Days celebrating Teaching Assistants' starting 17 November and building up to the Unison action on the 29th. What we'd like you to do is to share your stories about what heroes teaching assistants are. Perhaps you're a parent who wants to explain the difference a teaching assistant has made to your child? Or perhaps you're a teacher who wants to share the way a teaching assistant has had an impact in the classroom? Email us at teacherroar@gmail.com and we'll publish them on this blog.

If you want more information about how important teaching assistants are there's a great page of useful facts on the Unison website here.

3 comments:

As a mother of a child with Aspergers syndrome struggling in main stream education due to 5 year struggle trying to get a statement, I am upset to hear that the government is intending to axe many more teaching assistants.

In a case where SEN kids are lumped in with neurotypical kids, the teacher has neither the time or the training to devote to these children and this often falls on the teaching assistant. Many teaching assistants I know have taken their own time to study SEN methods so that they can help these unsupported kids and, if they are decreased in numbers, many will suffer.

In my sons class there is a SEN trained TA assigned to a statemented child and she has taken it upon herself to help my son at the same time. Without her, we would struggle to get him to go to school at all.

Dear Jan, thank you so much for your comment. We can assure you we will fight to keep teaching assistants. They are heroes who make a huge difference to children like your son. Stay tuned to this blog for ways that you can support 'Speak Up For Teaching Assistants', a day of action being organised by Unison on 29 November.

The government won't have to get rid of teaching assistants, it will come down to a piece-meal, disorganised shuffle to the job centre as individual academy sponsors take it upon themselves to get rid of support staff in favour of young, newly qualified, and easily manipulated teachers who cannot find a job when they come out of uni. Gove isn't that stupid, he knows that he doesn't have to call for mass sackings, which would engender anger and industrial action, and a huge blip in the jobless totals; all he has to do is tell his cronies who are now academy sponsors to do something to keep their name on his Christmas card list, and they will take that as the nod to look at what they can cut from their academies next....and it will be us.....it's already started.